Network Working Group R. Zakon
Request for Comments: 2235 MITRE
FYI: 32 November 1997
Category: Informational
Hobbes' Internet Timeline
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this
memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) Robert H. Zakon and The Internet Society (1997).
All Rights Reserved.
1. Introduction
This document presents a history of the Internet in timeline fashion,
highlighting some of the key events and technologies which helped
shape the Internet as we know it today. A growth summary of the
Internet and some associated technologies is also included.
2. Hobbes' Internet Timeline
Excerpted from the author's copyrighted work of the same name. The
most current version of Hobbes' Internet Timeline is available at
http://info.isoc.org/guest/zakon/Internet/History/HIT.html
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1950s
1957
USSR launches Sputnik, first artificial earth satellite. In
response, US forms the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)
within the Department of Defense (DoD) to establish US lead in
science and technology applicable to the military (:amk:)
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1960s
1962
Paul Baran, RAND: "On Distributed Communications Networks"
- Packet-switching (PS) networks; no single outage point
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1965
ARPA sponsors study on "cooperative network of time-sharing
computers"
- TX-2 at MIT Lincoln Lab and Q-32 at System Development
Corporation (Santa Monica, CA) are directly linked (without
packet switches)
1967
ACM Symposium on Operating Principles
- Plan presented for a packet-switching network
- First design paper on ARPANET published by Lawrence G. Roberts
National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Middlesex, England develops
NPL Data Network under D. W. Davies
1968
PS-network presented to the Advanced Research Projects Agency
(ARPA)
1969
ARPANET commissioned by DoD for research into networking
- First node at UCLA, Network Measurements Center
[SDS SIGMA 7, SEX] and soon after at:
- Stanford Research Institute (SRI), NIC [SDS940/Genie]
- UCSB, Culler-Fried Interactive Mathematics
[IBM 360/75, OS/MVT]
- Univ of Utah, Graphics [DEC PDP-10, Tenex]
- use of Information Message Processors (IMP) [Honeywell 516
mini computer with 12K of memory developed by Bolt Beranek
and Newman, Inc. (BBN)
First Request for Comment (RFC): "Host Software" by Steve Crocker
Univ of Michigan, Michigan State and Wayne State Univ establish
X.25-based Merit network for students, faculty, alumni (:sw1:)
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1970s
Store-and-forward networks
- Used electronic mail technology and extended it to
conferencing
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1970
ALOHAnet developed by Norman Abrahamson, Univ of Hawaii (:sk2:)
- connected to the ARPANET in 1972
ARPANET hosts start using Network Control Protocol (NCP).
1971
15 nodes (23 hosts): UCLA, SRI, UCSB, Univ of Utah, BBN, MIT, RAND,
SDC, Harvard, Lincoln Lab, Stanford, UIU(C), CWRU, CMU, NASA/Ames
Ray Tomlinson of BBN invents email program to send messages across
a distributed network. The original program was derived from two
others: an intra-machine email program (SNDMSG) and an experimental
file transfer program (CPYNET) (:amk:irh:)
1972
International Conference on Computer Communications with
demonstration of ARPANET between 40 machines and the Terminal
Interface Processor (TIP) organized by Bob Kahn.
InterNetworking Working Group (INWG) created to address need for
establishing agreed upon protocols. Chairman: Vinton Cerf.
Telnet specification (RFC 318)
1973
First international connections to the ARPANET: University College
of London (England) and Royal Radar Establishment (Norway)
Bob Metcalfe's Harvard PhD Thesis outlines idea for Ethernet
(:amk:)
Bob Kahn poses Internet problem, starts internetting research
program at ARPA. Vinton Cerf sketches gateway architecture in March